A round-up of Sunday editorials from Florida’s leading newspapers

A round-up of Sunday editorials from Florida’s leading newspapers:

Tampa Bay Times — Kids can’t learn in unsafe schools

Children cannot be expected to learn when they fear being bullied or physically attacked by other students. Yet for years, students in five of St. Petersburg’s poorest, predominantly black elementary schools struggled in often violent classrooms as teachers received little training and even less help in keeping order. While some progress has been made in restoring discipline, the Pinellas County School

No student in any school should have to cope with the dangerous situations described by Tampa Bay Times staff writers Lisa Gartner and Michael LaForgia. The heartbreaking examples of students who were verbally abused or physically attacked in these elementary schools in recent years would not be tolerated at more affluent schools in Pinellas or elsewhere. Yet for years helpless parents too often felt they had no choice but to move and find other schools where their children could learn without fear.

Every school has its discipline issues, but violent incidents in these elementary schools have more than doubled since 2010 as they have dropped at other Pinellas schools. One statistic particularly stands out: In 2014, there were more violent incidents at these five south St. Petersburg elementary schools than in Pinellas County’s 17 high schools combined. No wonder eight in 10 students failed reading and nine in 10 failed math at Campbell Park, Fairmount Park, Lakewood, Maximo and Melrose elementaries. They were too scared to learn, and the teachers were too busy struggling to keep order to focus on academics.

This is an egregious example of institutional neglect for years by an out-of-touch district administration. Discipline incidents were underreported to the state in apparent violation of state law, creating the impression that the schools were safer than parents and teachers knew they were from firsthand experience. Staffing was not beefed up, and technology such as panic buttons is going first to other schools. Teachers were often inexperienced and not properly trained to handle such disruptive or disturbed students. And when they called for help from school administrators, too often that help was delayed or never came.

This is what happens when the poorest children in need of the most services are clustered in the same schools — which is exactly what Pinellas did when it abandoned an unpopular school choice program in 2007, resegregated the schools and failed to deliver on its promises of a quality education and a safe environment. This is what happens when a school district does not provide the additional human and financial capital to deal with such overwhelming need. This is what happens when School Board members and district administrators do not recognize that too many black families are not happy in these schools but feel trapped in them and fear for the safety of their children.

The Bradenton Herald — Jimmy Carter keeps it real

The punchline about Jimmy Carter has long been that he made a better former president than president. He further proved its potency this week.

Mr. Carter, at 90, is faced with a staggering cancer diagnosis. And in what could very well be his darkest personal hour, he is schooling us on how to face the end of life with grace, dignity and spirituality.

“It’s in God’s hands now,” he said Thursday. In recent days, he’s considered the stark realization that he might have only weeks to live.

Earlier this month, President Carter learned that the liver cancer he thought he had beaten has metastasized and that he has melanoma spots in four parts of his brain. Cancer has been a constant for the Carters. His father and three siblings died of pancreatic cancer.

But President Carter is doing something remarkable. He’s not going into seclusion or into denial about his condition. He’s talking about it.

He held a news conference Thursday at his beloved Carter Center in Atlanta, and spoke to the media about his illness more candidly that any president or former president has ever done — except, perhaps, for Lyndon B. Johnson, who, in 1965, gave an unexpected public display of his surgical scar from gall-bladder surgery.

Traditionally, presidential maladies are for hiding. FDR and JFK fooled the American public, and others have done it even after leaving the White House. Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s was not officially known for years after he left office.

“I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” President Carter told a room full of reporters, as he detailed the size of the cancer spots found in his brain and how a section of his liver has been removed. “I’ve had an exciting, adventuresome and gratifying existence.”

The Daytona Beach News-Journal — Get moving on police body cams

The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office says it is anxious to outfit its deputies with body cameras, but its inaction speaks louder than its words.

The largest law enforcement agency in Volusia and Flagler counties has spent almost a year testing and evaluating the tiny video recording devices that are affixed to uniforms, but isn’t close to choosing a vendor and sending a funding proposal to the County Council. VCSO spokesman Gary Davidson told The News-Journal’s Lyda Longa that the department hopes to present something to the council “early next year.”

Meanwhile, several smaller agencies in the area have been using body cams for awhile. The Daytona Beach Police Department became the first to adopt them in 2012, and they quickly proved valuable: In September 2013, video cams captured DBPD officers shooting and arresting Jermaine Green, a former football star at Spruce Creek High School. The footage showed Green was threatening his girlfriend with a knife when officers opened fire. (Green survived his wounds, and in May was sentenced to 12 years in prison.)

During the time the VCSO has been mulling its decision on body cameras, its deputies have been involved in two controversial, fatal shootings. Last September, Deputy Joel Hernandez shot and killed Edward P. Miller, a 52-year-old deaf man, after Miller pulled a gun out of his pocket while sitting in a vehicle at a Daytona Beach towing yard. The State Attorney’s Office in May cleared Hernandez of criminal charges; however, Miller’s family said they will take legal action against the Sheriff’s Office.

On March 4, Deputy Todd Raible fatally shot Derek Cruice, 26, while serving a warrant at his Deltona home. Officials say Cruice, who was unarmed, made a move the deputy perceived as a threat. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is still investigating.

In both cases witnesses disputed the official version of events. Had video footage been available, it might have resolved the discrepancies. (The agency also doesn’t have dash cameras in their patrol cars, which would have been valuable to record a July 30 high-speed pursuit from DeBary to DeLand that ended in the deaths of the suspected car jacker and his passenger.)

Many police officials here and around the nation support the use of cameras because they not only help the public hold officers accountable, they often confirm that police actions were justified. They also have been shown to result in a decline in complaints against patrol officers and a decrease in use-of-force incidents.

The Florida Times-Union — Cheers: Smart, 7, and a good writer

Congrats to local seventh-grader Alfredo Reyes for using his great writing skills to win a chance to see some elite tennis players!

A member of the MaliVai Washington Youth Foundation, Alfredo was among the winners in the national Arthur Ashe Essay and Photo Contest, which is sponsored by this country’s main tennis organization.

Alfredo’s winning essay earned him a trip for two to New York City later this month to attend Arthur Ashe Kids Day, which will feature appearances by tennis pros playing in the U.S. Open, a concert and other activities.

Alfredo’s achievement is another example of the MaliVai Washington Youth Foundation’s impact in our community.

The North Jacksonville nonprofit was launched several years ago by Washington, a longtime tennis pro.

Florida Today – Send old escapee home to Brevard

The gears of justice must turn as the law prescribes for the 79-year-old fugitive who in Brevard went by the name William Cox. The integrity of our legal system requires that he stand accountable for his escape from a prison work camp 56 years ago.

But the same justice system, in Ohio as in Florida, allows for discretion by judges, parole boards and governors. And when those moments for discretion come, we urge Ohio officials to send Cox — whose real name is Frank Freshwaters — home to the Melbourne area to live out his years on probation.

A parole board in Ohio could decide to do that as early as Tuesday. We hope it sees the waste in imprisoning an old man who poses no danger to anyone.

As Frank Freshwaters, the man did serve some time years ago for failing to pay restitution to the wife and children of a man he hit with a car and killed in a case of second-degree manslaughter. That time included months in the awful Ohio State Reformatory, made famous by “The Shawshank Redemption” movie. But within the same year in 1959, Freshwater’s good behavior earned him a move to a lower-security work camp, from which he walked away.

Since then, Freshwaters has lived the way every corrections system hopes to see in parolees.

As William Cox, he had a peaceful and productive life for 28 years in Brevard, as a groundskeeper and truck driver.

Just as persuasive is his record while previously living for more than two decades in West Virginia.

The Gainesville Sun – Cheers and jeers

They’re just signs, but it’s a start.

Removing the “Zero Drug Tolerance” signs at the county border is a symbolic gesture, but would signal a smarter approach to minor drug violations while offering the chance for a more positive message about our community.

Cheer: The Alachua County Commission, for this week taking the first step to remove the zero-tolerance signs. The commission’s suggestion for a new sign, “Where Nature and Culture Meet,” would be a better representation of our community.

Local photographer John Moran first raised concerns about the signs, arguing they send an unwelcoming message to visitors. County law enforcement officials made an unconvincing defense of the signs, suggesting they might have a deterrent effect on drug dealers.

More important than changing the signs, county commissioners should keep considering ways to keep cases of minor marijuana possession out of the criminal justice system. They have directed the county attorney to look into whether the law can be changed to treat pot possession as a civil offense, similar to what Miami-Dade County has done.

Jeer: Local Republicans Pat Bainter, Stafford Jones and Alex Patton, for being part of a shadow redistricting process that included public hearings with phony testimony.

The Lakeland Ledger — Finding a right way to deal with wrong-way drivers

Regular readers of The Ledger know that on almost any given day this newspaper reports on some type of car crash. After all, according to Florida Highway Patrol statistics for 2015, there are on average 26 car accidents a day in Polk County. It seems logical that one would be extraordinary enough to merit news coverage.

For Polk drivers, the good news is that the pace of car crashes is down from a year ago. The current rate projects to roughly 9,500 accidents for 2015. Although that is up significantly from a few years ago — authorities in Polk reported just 5,132 in 2011 and 6,616 in 2012 — this year’s pace, if it holds, would result in about 300 fewer crashes than last year.

The even better news is that the number of fatalities should drop as well. In Polk County last year, the FHP reports, 113 people lost their lives in a traffic accident. At the current pace, we can expect 79 people will die this year in some kind of car accident — the lowest total in at least the last five years.

Alejandro Cancel-Montes of Winter Haven did not kill or even hit anyone prior to recent arrest for multiple traffic infractions. But the circumstances of his apprehension should invite outright fear for motorists.

Cancel-Montes was arrested just after 3 a.m. last Monday after driving the wrong way on Interstate 4. A white Toyota sedan driven by the 32-year-old was zooming and weaving westbound on the eastbound side of the highway. Besides wrong-way driving, Cancel-Montes was eventually booked on charges of DUI, driving without a license and driving without insurance. Imagine the calamity some family could find themselves in had state troopers not responded so quickly to reports of Cancel-Montes’ erratic driving.

The Miami Herald — The burden of Guantánamo

Nowhere in the Constitution is it written that maintaining a federal detention center is among the many powers delegated to Congress. Yet today it is abundantly clear that Congress is solely responsible for the continued existence of the wretched and dysfunctional prison that houses 116 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter renewed the Obama administration’s effort to close the prison by pleading for congressional support to transfer prisoners to a facility on the mainland. This is the administration’s “Plan B,” because the first plan — to try the 9/11 plotters, and perhaps others, in federal court — failed because of congressional obstruction. Mr. Carter’s plan is commendable, but, in truth, it, too, likely will run into the same obstinate refusal by the legislative branch to close Guantánamo.

That’s too bad because the prison long ago outlived its usefulness. Mr. Obama has been trying to close Guantánamo since he came into office because he realized, along with nearly everyone except members of Congress, that far from being an asset in the war against terrorism, the prison has become a liability to this country’s resources, security and its reputation around the world.

Cost: As Mr. Carter made clear last week, U.S. taxpayers are “paying too high a price” to keep the detention center open. Numbers bear him out: Reliable estimates say the United States has spent more than $5 billion at Gitmo and currently spends more than $3 million a year per prisoner, compared to about $75,000 at a stateside “supermax” prison. At a time when the Pentagon is shutting down valuable assets and programs to meet spending restrictions, does it make sense to maintain the most expensive and controversial prison in the world?

Dysfunction: The strange and unique proceedings at Guantánamo have failed to deliver anything resembling justice. Just six detainees have been both convicted and sentenced for war crimes in military commissions. Charges against three other detainees were later dismissed, and five who were convicted were eventually transferred out. In other words, it is more advantageous to be found guilty of a war crime than to remain without charges and imprisoned indefinitely. Meanwhile, the 9/11 masterminds have yet to be tried, whereas they would almost certainly be on death row if they had been tried in a federal court.

The Orlando Sentinel — Redo of Brown’s district won’t hurt blacks

The Florida House and Senate lapsed back into their maddening pattern of skirmish and stalemate last week, deadlocking over the details of congressional redistricting. It’s not clear who will end up drawing the maps.

But even the two dueling chambers could agree on a Florida Supreme Court-dictated redesign of the state’s most indefensible district.

District 5, represented by Democrat Corrine Brown, meanders from Jacksonville to Orlando, cutting through eight counties. It belongs in the dictionary to illustrate the term “gerrymandered.”

The district was first drawn by a federal judge in 1992 to give its African-American residents a shot at electing a black candidate. It worked; Brown has represented the district ever since.

But packing black voters, who tend to support Democratic candidates, in District 5 has made neighboring districts friendlier to Republican candidates. Both a trial judge and a majority of Supreme Court justices found this to be unconstitutional: a violation of the Fair District amendments that voters approved in 2010 to bar lawmakers from drawing districts with partisan advantage in mind.

Yet Brown insists legislative staff somehow undermined the federal Voting Rights Act by heeding the high court’s instruction to reorient District 5 to a less serpentine, east-west configuration. It would run from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, splitting fewer cities and counties along the way.

“District 5, they knew when they [re]drew it, would not elect an African-American; nor will it elect a Democrat,” Brown declared. This claim also deserves a home in the dictionary, next to the word “nonsense.”

In the redrawn district, African-Americans made up 42 percent of the voters in the 2014 general election and 46 percent in 2012, according to Politico. In the Democratic primaries in those two cycles, 63 percent of voters were black. President Obama won the district by 28 points in 2012. This would not be a district hostile to black and/or Democratic candidates.

The Ocala StarBanner — Ban backyard shooting ranges

State Rep. Neil Combee is no softy when it comes to supporting the Second Amendment and the rights of gun owners.

According to Project Vote Smart, the Polk County Republican over the past few years has sponsored or supported bills that would allow: school superintendents to authorize a faculty member at each of their schools to carry concealed weapons at school; college students with concealed-weapon permits to carry guns on campus; gun owners who do not have a state permit to carry concealed weapons without penalty in evacuating a declared emergency; and would prohibit insurers from raising rates on home or auto policyholders who happen to own firearms.

Last year Combee also authored — and Gov. Rick Scott later signed — legislation that expanded protection for people who wield guns under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. Combee’s bill extended that defense to people who fire a warning shot to fend off an attacker.

The other day, however, Combee swam against his own legislative current, filing a bill that reins in some practices of gun owners. His measure would outlaw backyard gun ranges, an idea that has the endorsement of the Florida Police Chiefs Association.

The Pensacola News-Journal — Yearly payout is the better approach

We’re encouraged to see that the compensation plan for economic recovery from the 2010 oil spill is coming into focus.

Last week, the PNJ’s Thomas St. Myer reported that $1.5 billion will be split between the most affected counties. A nonprofit corporation, Triumph Gulf Coast Inc., will oversee the payments. Directors, who met in Miramar Beach on Tuesday, said they expect to receive $300 million next year and then payments of $100 million each year until $1.5 billion is given out. That share is 75 percent of all the money in a $2 billion settlement worked out by state Attorney General Pam Bondi as compensation for damage to the economy. In addition to Escambia and Santa Rosa, the other counties include Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, Gulf, Franklin and Wakulla.

We support the yearly payouts for a couple of reasons:

Having the compensation checks arrive annually will allow for better management of the money. Partial payments over more than a decade can ensure the proper projects get funded, rather than a money grab in 2016. It’s easier to drink out of a garden hose than a fire hose.

Regular payments will allow Triumph to audit the money as it comes in and gets spent. A tidal wave of cash just increases the chance for chicanery, whether it’s from Washington, Tallahassee, Pensacola or anywhere in between. Since the time BP agreed to “make us whole” after the spill, we have urged that the compensation get close scrutiny so that every dollar is spent as intended in the counties that truly suffered through that summer of 2010 and beyond.

The Palm Beach Post — Insurers must include dental care in health coverage

One of the greatest unmet health needs in this community and nationwide is dental care.

That’s right, insurance companies: Dental care is a health need.

Dental pain is now responsible for 2 percent of all emergency room visits, costing an average of nearly $800 a visit. It’s time to end the penny-wise, pound foolish tradition of requiring separate insurance coverage for dental care. There are signs that’s starting to happen.

For too long, both government and private insurance coverage have treated the mouth like it’s not part of the body. The result? Only a fraction of people have coverage, with seniors and poor children bearing the greatest burden. They neglect toothaches and decay, and finally flee to the ER only when pain becomes unbearable. When a mouth infection reaches that point, it’s serious.

One study found that during an eight year period, 66 people died in American hospitals as a result of infected teeth and gums. They included 12-year-old Deamonte Driver, of Maryland, and 24-year-old Kyle Willis, of Ohio. Both had tooth infections that spread into their brains. Tragically, Willis had been handed an antibiotic prescription in the ER that he couldn’t afford to fill.

Here in Palm Beach County, there are 200,000 people poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but not nearly enough dentists willing to see them. The Palm Beach County Health Care District reports that only 1 in 6 Medicaid-eligible adults and 1 in 4 Medicaid-eligible children had gotten dental care in the previous year. Nationally, the figures are equally dismal.

Seniors on Medicare don’t fare much better. Traditional Medicare does not cover dental services — that requires supplemental coverage or a Medicare Advantage plan. One study found that nearly 60 percent of seniors over 65 had not seen a dentist in the previous year.

On the bright side, the Palm Beach County Health Care District is working to expand access to dental services. In July, their public clinics in West Palm Beach, Lantana, Delray Beach and Belle Glade took on eight full-time dentists who are now available for check-ups, teeth cleanings, fillings and extractions. Since the district added dental care six weeks ago, 2,295 people have been treated.

The Panama City News-Herald — It’s time to free students from debt

Butch Hancock, one of Austin’s finest singer-songwriters, grew up in the Texas Panhandle, out among dry-land farmers and strict fundamentalist Christians.

Butch once told me that he felt he’d been permanently scarred in his vulnerable teen years by the local culture’s puritanical preaching on sexual propriety: “They told us that sex is filthy, obscene, wicked, and beastly — and that we should save it for someone we love.”

Today, America’s higher education complex approaches students with the same sort of convoluted logic that guided Butch’s sex education: “A college degree is the key to prosperity for both you and your country, so it’s essential,” lectures the hierarchy to the neophytes. “But we’ll make it hard to get and often not worth the getting.” Touted as a necessity, but priced like a luxury, many degree programs are mediocre or worse — predatory loan scams that hustle aspiring students into deep debt and poverty.

On both a human level and in terms of our national interest, that is seriously twisted. Nonetheless, it’s our nation’s de facto educational policy, promulgated and enforced by a cabal of ideologues and profiteers, including Washington politicos, most state governments, college CEOs, Wall Street financiers and debt-collection corporations. What we have is a shameful ethical collapse. These self-serving interests have intentionally devalued education from an essential public investment in the common good to just another commodity.

Back in the olden days of 1961, I attended the University of North Texas. At this public school, I was blessed with good teachers, a student body of working-class kids (most, like me, were the first in their families to go to college) and an educational culture focused on enabling us to become socially useful citizens. All of this cost me under $800 a year (about $6,250 in today’s dollars) — including living expenses! With close-to-free tuition and a part-time job, I could afford to get a good education, gain experience in everything from work to civic activism, make useful connections, graduate in four years and obtain a debt-free start in life.

We just assumed that’s what college was supposed to be.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel – Contempt of court in Tallahassee

The Florida Legislature failed citizens again Friday when senators stormed out of a conference committee called to reconcile differing versions of a new political map for congressional districts, leading representatives to call it quits and adjourn the session.

It now appears the task of drawing the map will fall to the Florida Supreme Court, which sent the previous map back for a legislative re-do because it violated a constitutional prohibition against drawing lines to favor certain politicians or political parties.

While the legislature’s failure may not meet the legal standards for contempt of court, it certainly meets the standard in the court of public opinion.

What a mess.

Yet given the chaos that reigns in Tallahassee, perhaps it’s best for the state’s high court to create a map that will keep communities whole, as much as possible, instead of the gerrymandered districts that now snake their way through parts of the state.

Friday’s collapse looked a lot like what happened in May, when the House adjourned three days early, upset that the Senate refused to budge on a plan to accept federal Medicaid funds via a private-option insurance plan for poor people. The feuding chambers returned for a 19-day special session in June — at an estimated cost of $75,000 per day — to pass a state budget without the federal money.

And given Friday’s meltdown, it’s hard to expect something better when lawmakers meet again Oct. 19, for another costly special session to redraw political lines for Senate seats.

It’s worth noting that a similar dysfunction is playing out in Virginia, where this week’s special session to redraw congressional districts also melted down, leaving a court to draw the lines. But in Virginia, the power play is between Democrats and Republicans. In Florida, the GOP holds all the cards, yet still cannot get the job done.

As a starting point, the Florida Supreme Court gave lawmakers a “base map” for drawing compact congressional districts. The House mostly accepted the proposal, with changes made to keep Sunrise and Riviera Beach from being split three ways, and to keep Groveland and Auburndale in Central Florida whole. The Senate, though, wanted its version to prevail, a map that would make a divided eastern Hillsborough County whole and Sarasota County a single district.

The Tallahassee Democrat – Let’s land JetBlue

A group of organizations is asking local businesses to write letters inviting low-fare airline JetBlue to come to Tallahassee.

Air travel in the capital city has always been difficult and expensive. Everyone has a horror story about having to fly to Tampa via Nashville or finding it cheaper to drive to Miami than to fly – even adding in a hotel stay. It’s bad enough that the local parody group, The Laughing Stock, has a perennial hit in “Can’t Leave Here… on a Jet Plane,” sung to the tune of the John Denver song.

Everyone knows the solution, too. We need more competition to drive down prices – that’s just a basic principle of free enterprise. But knowing what’s needed doesn’t make it easy to accomplish.

We’re sure JetBlue knows we exist. If its management believed it would be profitable to fly out of TLH, they’d be here already. So a letter writing campaign alone probably won’t accomplish anything — although we support the effort.

But to get a discount carrier here, we’ll have to lure them with – take a deep breath, now – incentives.

It’s easy to take a puritanical view and say that government shouldn’t be in the business of subsidizing businesses. But if this city wants cheaper airfare – and surely we do – incentives might be the only way to make it happen. The Chamber and Visit Tallahassee have already signed on to contribute as-yet undisclosed amounts.

Wait a minute, you may be saying — haven’t we done this before? Did we not learn our lesson from The AirTran Affair?

The Tampa Tribune — Legislative dysfunction shows need for independent redistricting commission